March 22: Uprising in White Russia

A Jew named Shlomo Kushnir led a mass uprising of the surviving Jewish slave laborers at the Koldzyczewo Work Camp in White Russia on this date in 1944. Ten Nazi guards were killed by explosives, and all some 100 inmates escaped, many through a crudely dug tunnel, to the forests and the partisan bands who lived and fought there. Among the 25 inmates captured before escaping was Kushnir, who committed suicide before he could be tortured and executed. Over 22,000 inmates were murdered and buried in 38 mass graves at Koldzyczewo in the course of four years.

“I was one of the first to climb into the tunnel. I don’t remember being frightened. It was more frightening to stay in the labor camp than anything else. . . . I crawled like a lizard, as fast as I could . . .” —Martin Small, Remember Us